“Charles loved her voice. It was so soft and blurred, like pastels. It made his neck tingle just to listen to her. It gave him the same delicious feeling he had as he hovered on the brink of sleep and this feeling - until now - had been the single most pleasant feeling in his life. It was the voice that coloured everything he now thought about her. It was shy and tentative and musical. Sometimes he did not manage to hear the words she said, but he did not let on about his deafness.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“My name is Herbert Badgery. I am a hundred and thirty-nine years old and something of a celebrity. They come and look at me and wonder how I do it. There are weeks when I wonder the same, whole stretches of terrible time. It is hard to believe you can feel so bad and still not die.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“She did not begin to tell real lies until Rosa was in hospital suffering that filthy rot that left her all eaten out inside, as light and fragile as a pine log infested with white ant”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“She felt his personality to be round and smooth and free from nasty spikes.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“His great carved wooden head was marked with a black eye that was more yellow than black and from this spectacular bed of bruised flesh the eye itself, sand irritated, bloodshot, as wild as a currawong's, stared out at a landscape in which the tops of fences protruded from windswept sand.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“The cicadas, as if they were wired on the same circuit, suddenly filled the garden with a loud burst of celebration.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“It made me comfortable. It was a house where you could put your feet up and drink French champagne or Ballarat Bitter according to your mood.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“Years later when she was being eccentric, had shed her corset and let her arse spread unhindered by anything but her perpetual dressing gown.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“The most puzzling thing in the entire encounter occurred at a certain stage very late in the conversation, when she discovered she had been talking to a man. She had the feeling of a dream where things and people transmogrify, characters dissolve from one to the other like tricks in a film, monsters in a bottle. She had the sense, the very distinct sense, of her companion's female gender; she had been pleased to find it, had relaxed into it, had been even more delighted to find it coupled with an elegant wit and a sense of both joy and irony. The forces of life, she thought to herself, are flying high tonight.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
“There are problems with the wombat," Nathan Schick said. "I was interested in wombats in '29. I went up to your zoo in Sydney and looked at the wombat. The fellow said you could train them but God, Herbie, no offence... Lee-Anne... but the wombat is not star quality.”
― Peter Carey, quote from Illywhacker
Peter Carey
Born place: in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia
Born date May 7, 1943
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“I play out the cards. They say: This is Heaven, this is Hell. It is one.”
― Sandra Gulland, quote from The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
“We don't have to beg or bribe God to give us strength or hope or patience. We need only turn to Him, admit that we can't do this on our own, and understand that bravely bearing up under long-term illness is one of the most human, and one of the most godly, things we can ever do. One of the things that constantly reassures me that God is real, and not just an idea that religious leaders made up, is the fact that people who pray for strength, hope and courage so often find resources of strength, hope and courage that they did not have before they prayed.”
― Harold S. Kushner, quote from When Bad Things Happen to Good People
“In the early hours of the morning she turned her swollen face toward Mike and opened her eyes—or tried to. One was partially shut because of the swelling. He scooted closer. “Brie,” he whispered. “It’s me, Brie. I’m here.” She put her hands over her face and cried out. “No! No!” He took gentle hold of her wrists. “Brie! It’s me. It’s Mike. It’s okay.” But he couldn’t pull her hands away from her face. “Please,” she whimpered pitifully. “I don’t want you to see this….” “Honey, I saw you already,” he said. “I’ve been sitting here for hours. Let it go,” he said. “It’s okay.” She let him slowly pull her hands away from her battered face. “Why? Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here!” “Jack wanted me to help him understand what was happening with the investigation. But I wanted to be here. Brie, I wanted to be here for you.” He brushed her brow gently. “You’re going to be okay.” “He… He got my gun….” “The police know, honey. You didn’t do anything wrong.” “He’s so dangerous. I tried to get him—that’s why he did this. I was going to put him away for life.” Mike’s jaw pulsed, but he kept his voice soft. “It’s okay, Brie. It’s over now.” “Did they find him?” she asked. “Did they pick him up?” Oh, how he wished she wouldn’t ask that. “Not yet.” “Do you know why he didn’t kill me?” she asked, a tear running out of her swollen eye and down over the bridge of her purple nose. He tenderly wiped it away. “He said he didn’t want me to die. He wanted me to try to get him again, and watch him walk again. He wore a condom.” “Aw, honey…” “I’m going to get him, Mike.” “Please… Don’t think about that now. I’ll get the nurse. Get you another sedative.” He put the light on and the nurse came immediately. “Brie needs something to help her go back to sleep.” “Sure,” the nurse said. “I’m just going to wake up again,” she said. “And I’m just going to think the same things.” “Try to rest,” he said, leaning over to kiss her brow. “I’ll be right here. And there’s an officer outside your door. You’re completely safe.” “Mike,” she whispered. She held his hand for a long moment. “Did Jack ask you to come?” “No,” he said, gently touching her brow. “But when I found out what happened, I had to come,” he whispered. “I had to.” After having a sedative administered into the IV, she gently closed her eyes again. Her hand slipped out of his and he sat back in his chair. Then, his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands, he silently wept. *”
― Robyn Carr, quote from Whispering Rock
“Do we say to the wind, do you wish not to blow? Do we say to the thunder, would you rather be silent? No. We never think of these things.”
― Amanda Grange, quote from Mr. Darcy, Vampyre
“Progress is something with no pity, and no purpose. It just happens. It chews up all you ever knew, and spits out things you can't understand, and the only value it seems to have is to make a few people a lot of money.”
― Spider Robinson, quote from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
Somewhere In Time
Predestined
Okay for Now
A Beautiful Mind
The Gray Wolf Throne
The NaturalsBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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